After two years of holding a supporting coaching role in high school cross country around the Northeast Ohio area, Justin Thomas is taking the reins at Garfield by becoming the school’s new cross country coach this fall.
“I have had some opportunities working with the varsity and junior varsity athletes but to have my own team and program is exciting,” the first-year coach told The Weekly Villager on July 8. “What I am looking at is that we are not just looking at building one year; this is an opportunity to build a program. We are going to look at creating a team. When I say team, I always capitalize TEAM, because we want to emphasize that we are a team. When you look at that team, it is eventually going to become a family.”
Thomas succeeds Coach Matt Pfleger, who steps down after holding the head coaching role at Garfield for five seasons. Although it is Thomas’ first year as head coach, he developed a strong relationship with his predecessor last fall.
According to Thomas, he had become familiar with several Garfield female athletes, training at his running club, the Cleveland Youth Running Club, a youth running organization that promoted long distance running for children starting in first grade up to the eighth grade.
Thomas said that he kept in touch with one Garfield female runner, Lina Kaufman, and had collaborated with Pfleger in structuring her workouts and training, which led to a trusting relationship.
He acknowledged that the opportunity to succeed Pfleger as the cross country coach did not present itself until the conclusion of the 2026 Ohio High School Athletic Association outdoor state track meet last month, when Pfleger inquired about his interest in inheriting the program.
“I think at that time, I thought ‘I don’t know if it would work’ but as I thought about it more and he thought about it and we talked, it came to fruition. That is where it came from,” the 2006 Kent State University graduate said.
Thomas added that the timing of it aligned with his own schedule, as his children had reached an age where they were becoming more independent, giving him enough time to commit himself to becoming a head cross country coach.
Although Thomas already has an existing relationship with one Garfield runner, he emphasized that he was committed to the entire program.
“There is so much strength behind her which they showed last year when you look at who is coming back and what they can do, especially with a good summer of training. Following that all the through August, September and October and hopefully into early November,” he noted.
Thomas has been thoroughly involved in the high school cross country scene in the last two years, working as an assistant coach at Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin for both cross country teams in 2024, when his son Owen qualified to the OHSAA Division II state meet and then worked as a volunteer coach in the West Geauga boys’ cross country program last fall, which saw Ian Res land sixth place at the OHSAA Division II state meet last year.
Since founding the CYRC with Craig Nieset and Brad Geletka in 2019, Thomas has been plugged in to the high school cross country circuit in Northeast Ohio.
“When we first started that in 2019, we went to district and regional meets and met all of the local coaches and just kept having conversations,” he added. “All of those guys that I have sat down and had conversations with has just been a great experiment.”
Thomas brings a wealth of cross country and outdoor track knowledge to the team, as he was a member of two OHSAA Division II state qualifying cross country teams in his freshman and sophomore years at Olmsted Falls.
Thomas conceded that after he graduated from KSU, he drifted away from cross country and outdoor track until he worked with Nieset and Geletka to found the CYRC in 2019, which reignited his passion for distance running, and also offered a new way to train youth runners in Northeast Ohio into dominant athletes once they reached the high school level.
After a historic season in which Garfield boasted its first state qualifier in cross country since Caroline Hahn in 2012, Thomas said he is prepared to take the program to new heights.
“I want to see everyone getting improvement and I think that is something that Garfield is already getting used to,” he said. “We want to see improvement consistently and not just focus on the top runners doing this and everyone else does that. We want to make sure that everybody is getting their own experience and their own results to achieve their goals.”
